Southeast Asia

Overview

Southeast Asia is home to an incredibly diverse population. The island nation of Papua New Guinea alone is home to more than 1,000 people groups who speak more than 800 languages. Christianity has taken root and continues to grow among ethnic minorities who face increasing persecution from oppressive regimes.

Islam is another challenge to native believers in Southeast Asia. Christians in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, face high levels of persecution from radical Muslims, who are pushing Sharia-inspired laws in more communities. Meanwhile, a growing Muslim population on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines continues to breed radicalism and hatred for Christians. In both of these countries, however, Christianity has sustained continued growth.

With the growth of Christianity in Southeast Asia comes an enormous need for trained church leaders. Thousands of rural congregations languish without adequate leadership, falling into unbiblical teaching, moral failure, and syncretism.

In addition to persecution from radical Muslims and hostile governments, native missionaries in Southeast Asia are challenged to minister to unreached people groups in regions of extreme poverty and where there is rampant drug usage. The countries of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand comprise Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle, one of Asia’s two main opium-producing areas. Myanmar is also the world’s largest producer of methamphetamines.

How You Can Make a Difference

Christians are not welcomed into towns and villages dominated by false religions unless they can offer a product or service helpful to the community. Your support for Southeast Asian missionaries enables them to start small businesses as a means to enter communities, build relationships, and be self-supporting. Ministries in Southeast Asia also request assistance for Bibles and training materials in local languages for the many ethnic minority groups that are responding to the gospel message.

Ways To Give

Southeast Asian man sits on tile floor with legs crossed and hands together while others sit in a circle with him

Evangelism & Discipleship

Through the work of one indigenous ministry in Vietnam, more than 3,000 house churches exist in the country’s Central Highlands. A ministry on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines has shared the gospel and planted churches among the island’s 13 Muslim-majority tribes through carefully trained native missionaries. Though ministry inside North Korea is impossible under the present regime, native missionaries established underground churches in six locations in northern China among North Korean women who were trafficked across the border. GIVE NOW to help evangelistic and discipleship ministries like these in Southeast Asia.

Indonesian man smiling while sitting on his motorcycle with his chainsaw on the back

Community Engagement

In Indonesia, several Christian Aid Mission-assisted ministries are providing business training to desperately poor pastors and equipping them to start microenterprises to support their families and fledgling churches. GIVE NOW to help community engagement ministries like these in Southeast Asia.

Men and women from Myanmar line up to register for a free healthcare clinic

Compassion

In Myanmar, where multitudes fall prey to drug addiction, a ministry is sharing the love of Christ through its two addiction recovery centers where addicts are cared for and discipled in God’s Word. GIVE NOW to help compassion ministries like this one in Southeast Asia.

Exclusive Stories from the Mission Field

Myanmar

Send the Salvation Message in Burma

Sometimes relocating from one place to another to escape military and other violence, native Christian workers at one ministry shared the gospel with 4,500 people over a period of six months. Helping to meet humanitarian needs such as food and health care opened the way for many gospel discussions, and the ministry emphasizes one-on-one evangelism as most effective.

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Prayerline

Help Workers Share the Gospel in Vietnam

As churches multiply and grow, native Christian workers are key to training pastors with an accredited program of theological education by extension. Thousands of students are enrolled in first- and second-level courses, and native missionaries are now working in 22 provinces to share the gospel, disciple new believers, and plant house churches.

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Featured-Post

Gospel Revives a Battered Life in Indonesia

A young man in Indonesia who had suffered setbacks throughout his life found himself trying to make a living by performing on the street. Osbert*, 28, told a Christian worker who engaged him in conversation that his wife had recently left him, and that he had no hope for the future, the ministry leader said. The worker shared how Christ cares for him so much that He died on the Cross to take the punishment for all sinners who accept His salvation.
“Since the first time he heard the gospel story, he immediately responded positively and then put his faith in Jesus,” the ministry leader said. “It wasn’t long before he accepted baptism.”

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Myanmar

Provide Care to Traumatized People in Burma

The military regime in Burma continues to attack its own citizens to quash resistance, causing innocent civilians to suffer. A ministry reported that a village was destroyed just 10 minutes from its headquarters. At least 150 houses were burned, two people were burned alive, and four others are missing.

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Philippines

Get the Gospel to the Unreached in the Philippines

Native ministry workers reported that an Islamic scholar began reading a Bible they distributed and ordered others from his ethnic community to form Bible study groups in various villages and sent people to share the gospel with his relatives. Another Muslim leader began listening to an audio Bible with the missionary team, telling them he had “goosebumps” when he heard the complete story of creation for the first time.

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Indonesia

Help Workers Plant Churches in Indonesia

A secret Christian who has long been an influential Hindu priest has asked a native Christian worker to disciple him; he wants to learn more about how to follow Christ as he considers whether to make a public declaration of his faith.

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